Competence in palliative care can be considered from a common viewpoint, with a focus on knowledge, key skills, personal qualities, attributes and behaviours, which Becker terms “core competences.” According to Becker, an individual must have core competencies in order to perform a job effectively. The study showed that competencies in managing pain, nausea, anxiety/restlessness, fatigue and dryness of mouth as well as time available for nursing care, measured using the Edmonton symptom assessment system (ESAS), had a positive effect on care routines.Īccording to Newble, competence can be seen as a prerequisite for performance in the real clinical setting. The study associated with this project had a cross-sectional design and was the first Nordic survey of nursing clinical competence in palliative care. In 2007 a new instrument measuring nursing clinical competence in palliative care was developed and pilot-tested among nurses who had graduated from a post-bachelor, palliative care specialist program. To the best of our knowledge, the various domains of competence particular to palliative care nursing and the assessment of nurses’ competence in this area have not been previously explored in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, or Norway. Ī more systematic assessment of nurses’ palliative care competence is considered to be an important research area. Competence is a prerequisite for high quality nursing in clinical settings. Nurses’ clinical competence in symptom management and application of best care practices is crucial. To ensure optimal care and treatment, at least a basic level of competence in palliative care nursing is needed, but the complexity of palliative care at end-of-life requires advanced clinical care competence. A clear need exists for a validated instrument for use in assessing nurses’ competence in palliative care. To improve the quality of palliative end-of-life care, clinicians’ competence has been emphasized for some years, particularly in regard to the assessment of symptoms. A large proportion of patients in Norway die in their community, either at home or in nursing homes. Palliative care in Norway has been closely integrated with cancer care units therefore, palliative care units and their specialists remain limited in number. The demand for skilled services to help individuals with incurable and life-limiting diseases and their families will increase in the coming years. Persons with incurable illness need clinical assessments and care from a wide range of healthcare services. With populations aging, more persons are living with the effects of serious illness. The instrument has the potential to be used to refine clinical competence in palliative care and be used for the training and evaluation of palliative care nurses. The actual instrument needs to be tested in a practice setting with a larger sample to confirm its usefulness. A modified confirmatory factor analysis revealed the following five domains: knowledge in symptom management, systematic use of the Edmonton symptom assessment system, teamwork skills, interpersonal skills, and life closure skills. The initial analysis, with structural equation modelling, was run in Mplus 7. A total of 122 clinical nurse specialists who had completed a postbachelor program in palliative care at two university colleges in Norway answered the questionnaire. The purpose of this study was to test and validate the nurses’ core competence in palliative care (NCPC) instrument. Few research studies have focused on nurses’ core competencies in clinical palliative care and few measurement tools have been developed to explore these core competencies. Competence can be seen as a prerequisite for high quality nursing in clinical settings.
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